The last taboos

Captain James Cook, in addition to being the first European to spot Australia’s east coast, was also the first to record the use of the word ‘taboo’. Upon hearing it in Tonga, where it seemed to be associated with the prohibition of certain actions, he wrote how it signified “that a thing is forbidden”.

Before long, the term spread throughout the English language, including in workplaces where it now represents the unspecified activities in which staff must never engage. They’re unspecified because you rarely find them written in an employee policy manual since it’s so difficult to list the many idiosyncrasies with the potential to annoy. Here, though, are some of the most common.

Profanity: Last month, an employee from a Toyota dealership in New South Wales went to the Fair Work Commission because he was sacked for swearing. The dismissal was upheld. Since the employee’s swearing was directed at a customer (he had said “you wasted my f****** time”), the employee was found to be in contravention of his core responsibility of providing customer service.

If, however, the swearing was part of casual conversation with a colleague, it’s possible the outcome of that tribunal would have been very different.

Sharing salary information: In a study conducted at the University of California, employees were given access to a website containing their colleagues’ pay details. Unsurprisingly, those who discovered they were earning less than their co-workers eventually reported lower levels of job satisfaction and many of them started searching for a new job.

The most curious revelation was that even those who learned they earned more than their workmates didn’t find this news pleasing. It had a zero effect on their job satisfaction levels. So, in effect, the sharing of salary information serves no one – and yet so many people continue to do it.

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Politics and religion: I once worked with a lady who had a Joe Hockey calendar hanging on her desk. Even though she infrequently proselytised the virtues of a conservative vote, it was still almost impossible to walk past her desk without making eye contact with the beaming Member for North Sydney. It never bothered me, but others in the team had a serious problem with it. She never took it down.

In the same office, I had another colleague who was proudly atheistic. This meant that if she sneezed and someone acknowledged it with a “bless you”, she’d refuse to accept it – as in directly ask them to take it back. Even when the blessing came from a fellow atheist whose intention clearly wasn’t a literal inference of God doing the blessing, it was still impulsively rejected.

Personal phone calls: One of the drawbacks of working in an open-plan office is loss of privacy. This is especially evident when it comes to making personal phone calls. From one uncomfortable perspective, everyone can hear what you’re saying. In a quiet workplace, this happens even when you whisper.

But the other, perhaps worse, perspective is that you can also hear them. And at times this can swing from entertaining to nauseating. In the former category can be the row with a feuding partner, the likes of which can be a welcome distraction from the task at hand. In the latter category is the sweetheart baby talk, accompanied by the obligatory squeaky voice and infantile names, the combination of which makes you wish for a power outage.

Browsing jobseeker sites: With the widespread ability to access the internet via laptops and other mobile devices, it’s staggering many people still openly search for another job using their computer at work. Even when it’s done during their lunch break, there’s something quite brazen and incidentally up-yours about letting everyone know you’re on the hunt. Or, hey, maybe that’s precisely the point.